DARK CITY

Eddie Muller is a man of many talents, more than just the author of DARK CITY. But that book is so engaging and so thorough that you can't imagine anyone else writing a better book on the subject. That subject, of course, is film noir. Without the movies, I doubt that I would have become a fan of crime fiction. My mother was a teenager in the 40's, and a huge fan of Tyrone Power, Alan Ladd, Dana Andrews, Robert Mitchum and the other studs that populated the Dark City Streets of Hollywood B-movies. She shared her enthusiasm for tough guys in gray suits and felt hats with her three sons, and, through the magic of cable television, we were properly hooked at a young age. Give me a post-WWII, 90-minute, sharp-angled, shadowy black & white, with dialog snappier than an zoot-suited bandleader, and I'm happy. That brings us back to Eddie Muller and DARK CITY. Few books are as fun to pick up and leaf through again and again. The movies endure, and Mr. Muller has captured their timeless appeal with verve, humor and erudition.
a.d. XIII Kal. un.